The College News
VOL. XX, No. 7
BRYN MAWR AND WAYNE, PA., WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1933
Copyright BRYN MAWR
COLLEGE NEWS. 1933
PRICE 10 CENTS
Mrs. Louis Slade
Lectures on Far East
World's Great Issues Must be
Determined by Countries
Around Pacific
CHINA IS HOMOGENEOUS
"The crisis of future world history
will lie around the Pacific," said Mrs.
F. Louis Slade, beginning the fourth
of the Anna Howard Shaw Memorial
Lectures in Goodhart Hall, Monday
night, November 20, on The Far
East. America is a Pacific country;
it belongs more on the Pacific than
on the Atlantic; and it is time that
Americans stopped looking at the Pa-
cific with European eyes, and took
the first, step in putting down
the wall which they have set up to
separate themselves from their Ori-
ental neighbors, China and Japan.
Chinese history traces back to
2500 B. C, when the Emperor Fu
Hsi invented fishing, hunting, hiero-
glyphics, and marriage. By 760
B. C, the year of a famous eclipse,
the Chinese had become settled in
their ways, and current ideas were
much as they are today. Confucius
was not an original thinker, but the
coJifier of Chinese thought.
One of the secrets of the greatness
of China is its homogeneity. The
people were held together by a uni-
versal way of life. The Emperor was
the Son of Heaven; he ruled China
and the people of China ruled them-
selves. They paid their taxes and
desired to be free of all governmental
cares. If the taxes became too se-
vere, they overthrew a dynasty.
When northern invaders threatened
their integrity, they built a Great
Wall the length of their western bor-
der. China went on.
Japanese history begins 1600 years
after that of China. One of theffirst
things recorded of Japan is an at-
tempt to take Korea. The Japanese,
unlike the Chinese, were eager to find
out the doings of other peoples; they
were great observers and assimilat-
ors.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, Japan attempted to capture
China, and succeeded in taking much
of what is now Korea and Manchuria.
By the seventeenth century, she had
developed a great military civiliza-
tion, a narrow nationalism which held
sway until America broke in upon it,
under Perry, in 1853. The next fifty
years tell the great story of how
Japan remade herself into a western
nation, measuring up , to western
standards.
The Chinese and Koreans despised
Japan for her westernization; that
they had underestimated it appeared
in the outcome of the Chino-Japanese
war in 1894, when the Japanese
troops wiped out the army of a na-
(Conttnued on Paire Six)
Foreign Fellowships
� A limited number of fellowships
and assistantships are available to
American students for graduate
study abroad under the international
student exchanges of the Institute of
International Education.
The Institute aims not only to en-
courage further knowledge of the
language, literature, or civilization
of a foreign country, but also to pro-
mote research in the natural and so-
cial sciences. Germany and Swit-
zerland offer the greatest opportuni-
ties to Americans interested in these
fields, but students are also sent to
Austria, Czechoslovakia, France,
Hungary, Italy, and Spain.
Candidates for fellowships must
be able to read, speak, and write the
language of the country in which
they wish to study, and should also
have between five and six hundred
dollars, of their own money to cover
traveling, vacation, and incidental ex-
penses. All applications must be fil-
ed on or before January 15. Addi-
tional information may be obtained
by applying to the Secretary, Stu-
dent Bureau, Institute of Internation-
al Education, 2 West 45th Street,
New York City.
CALENDAR
Thurs., Nov. 23. Shaw Lec-
ture Conference. Deanery, 2
�to 4 P. M.
Sun., Nov. 26. Mr. J. Law-
rence Binyon will speak or.
"Chinese Painting." It will be
illustrated by lantern slides.
Deanery, 5 P. M.
Mon., Nov. 27. Fifth of the
Anna Howard Shaw Memorial
Lectures. Miss Jane Addams
will speak on "The Hopes We
Inherit." Goodhart, 8.20 P. M.
Tues... Nov. 28. Shaw Lec-
ture Conference. Deanery, 2
to 4 P. M.
Tues., Nov. 28. James Steph-
ens will speak on "Our Overdue
Renaissance." Goodhart, 8.20
P. M.
Mon., Dec. 4. Sixth of the
Anna Howard Sha'w Memorial
Lectures. Miss Addams will
speak on "Opportunities of
the New Day." Goodhart, 8.20
P. M.
Russia Raises Group
Standards of Living
Dr. Fairchild Discusses State
Agrarian and Industrial
Organization
WAGES ARE GENEROUS
Heartbreak House Is
Staged in Goodhart
�? ig Speeches Unrelieved by
'Action Render Shaw's Play
Unsatisfactory
ACTING IS UNFEELING
"The standard of living of the
masses of the people is the foremost
concern of the Soviet state," declar-
ed Dr. Fairchild, conducting a Dean-
ery conference Tuesday, November
14, on The Social and Economic Or-
ganization of Russia at the End of
tin- First Five-Year Plan. It is in
order to assure every worker a fair
share of the national income that the
government undertakes to own and
direct the means of production.
At the end of the first First Fivc-
Year Plan, 95 per cent, of Russian
.ndustry is owned outright by the
government, and 75 per cent, of Rus-
sian agriculture is conducted on great
jollective farms which rent machin-
ery from government tractor stations
and are controlled by government po-
litical organizations.
Government direction of economic
activity allows the Soviet to plan for
the welfare of the people as a whole.
Wages are made as generous as pos-
sible, instead of being fixed at a
minimum living wage plus the mar-
ket price of labor, as in the United
States under the NRA. The total
Russian payrolls are in proportion to
the total production, and prices are
determined solely by the cost of pro-
duction. Because the whole nation
acts as a unit, the U. S. S. R. can
introduce labor-saving machinery and
at the same time increase wages and
shorten hours without creating un-
employment.
In seeking to extend its control over
agriculture, Russia has, however, en-
countered formidable problems. The
peasants, having taken over the land
from their former masters, resented
government interference. By 1928 the
kulaks had increased agricultural
production, but the government had
no voice in determining what crops
should be sown, and loyal Commun-
ists asserted that the kulaks, who
made big profits in the open market,
were reviving capitalism.
On the other hand, the collective
farms, which were organized to offset
this danger, have not been entirely
successful; the technique of large
scale agricultural management must
still be worked out. Peasant dissat-
isfaction was at the basis of the
1932-3 agrarian crisis, and this year
the government receives only a limit-
ed amount of grain from each farm
as a percentage tax on the estimated
total production; the rest is sold in
the open market. After certain
funds have been laid aside for capi-
tal, the members of the farm are paid
according to days of labor.
In order to speed up production,
the Communists have utilized vari-
ous means �f securing the cc-opera-
(Conllnueo on Pa^e. Four)
The Hedgerow Players' presenta-
tion of Shaw's Heartbreak House last
Tuesday night was the worst per-
formance of any olay that has de-
filed the boards of Goodhart Hall in
the memory of the present under-
graduates. It is hard to criticise the
play as it was presented, for there
was no play. It is even harder to
criticise the acting, for when Mr.
Deeter was not on the stage, there
was no acting. It is impossible to
say that the tempo or the action was
too slow, for there was no tempo and
almost no action.
Heartbreak House is described by
Shaw as "a fantasia in the Russian
manner on English themes." That
explains a great deal. He is satiriz-
ing the Russian fondness for placing
strangely-behaved people in a de-
pressing atmosphere, which makes
them behave even more strangely;
and for making each character not
only frankly discuss His most secret
faults and emotions, but expound in-
terminable theories about life and
the theme of the play. Shaw's char-
acters were certainly strangely-be-
haved and placed in a most depress-
ing atmosphere: the startling treat-
ment of the guest from whose unwill-
ing hands cups of tea were wrested
while the woes of the house of Shot-
over were" poured upon her head,
created a Russian atmosphere at
once. Nothing was sacred in the con-
versations between the characters:
iheir proclivities for lying and their
love lives were discussed with equal
zest and frankness. Everyone who
saw Heartbreak House was only too
willing to lament the interminable
monotony of the pseudo-Russian con-
versations.
Although the idea and some of the
lines' of the play were memorably
funny, it was difficult to maintain in-
terest in it. In an interesting play,
some character is usually striving
against opposition to gain his desire.
The only character in. Heartbreak
House who was striving to gain any
end at all was the young girl, Ellie
Dunn; in the first act it was explain-
ed that she did not want to marry
her fiance, who was much older than
she, because she was in love with a
younger man whose name she did not
know; but also in the first act she
discovered that the man -he loved
was Hector Hushabye, the husband
of her hostess. She was so heart-
broken over this discovery that she
ceased to care about anything and
decided to marry her fiance, Boss
Mangan. He created a little opposi-
tion because Hesione Hushabye had
made him fall in love with her, in an
effort to keep Ellie from having to
marry him. At the end of the scene,
however, he consented to marry Ellie,
and with his consent died all the ele-
ment of conflict in "the play.
The only remaining action was ad-
ventitiously supplied by a burglary
and an air raid. Thfre was no more
action resulting from a conflict be-
tween the characters and force pre-
venting them from obtaining their
desires; for none of the characters
but Elbe ever had any desires and
ffontlnued on Page Two)
Faculty Books
In connection with the arti-
cle in last week's News on the
recent publications of the fac-
. ulty and the projects in which
they are now engaged, the edi-
tors wish to state that the basis
for the information was the
questionnaires recently sent
out by the Publications Office.
Some of the faculty who have
done most distinguished work
in their departments have not
yet filled in and returned the
questionnaires and therefore
no mention of their work was
made in the article. It is plan-
ned to run a supplementary
article as soon as all the forms
have been filed. Also the plan
was to deal only with the re-
cent work of the faculty, and
therefore no mention was made
of the books and publications
which have appeared prior to
the present year.
Dance
dergrad announces that there
'"will be a dance held in conjunc-
tion with the Varsity Dramat-
ics presentation of The Knight
of the Burning Pestle on Sat-
urday, December 9. The dance
will be held in the gym and
the same orchestra that met
with such approval last fall will
again be engaged. Although
the closing hour of the dance
has not as yet been definitely
established it is certain that it
will begin at 10.30 P. M.
Little Women Provokes
Enthusiastic Response
Last Sunday's preview of Little
Women, Katherine Hepburn's latest
movie vehicle, at the Stanley Theatre
in Philadelphia, gave proof positive
of its "box-office appeal." The the-
atre was filled row onflow with rath-
er hard-faced men and their mates,
at first sight an unpromising audi-
ence for a Louisa May Alcott movie.
It scarcely seemed possible that they
had read Little Women in childhood
and were about to engage in tender
reminiscences of it. We anticpated
an uncomfortable two hoilrs sur-
rounded by a sneering audience. But
uch was the potent charm of the
movie that in record time the theatre
was swept with enthusiasm. Noses
were blown at the appropriate mo-
ments; no one laughed at Beth's in-
pired saccharinity; and all, includ-
ing us, succumbed to the refreshing
influence of the March family for an
hour and a half.
Probably Katherine Hepburn will
never find a role more suited to her
peculiar combination of frolic and
exotic charm, nor Jo March, a more
inspired interpreter of her wayward
character. From the point at which
we >ee her leading aloud to Aunt
March to the final fadeout with Pro-
fessor Bhaer, her acting has the per-
fection of art, premeditated yet
sound. One small scene in her first
call at Larry's house was memorable,
the presentation of Meg's blanc-
mange and Beth's basket of kittens.
She has dor..' the same type of thing
before, as in the office scene in Morn-
ing (Horn, but this surpassed all pre-
vious performances^ Her acting of
the quick plunges, blurts, and false
starts in meeting and understanding
a new person came from the heart,
not from the diaphragm. The idiotic
hoot with which she finished her po-
lit'1 self-introdueticn was a master-
piece in itself.
Although Miss Hepburn is not onlj
announced as the star of lAttli
Women, but actually plays up to a
stellar pitch, a good supporting cast
was essential and was forthcoming.
The other actors were very adequate
in spite of the fact that none of them
played well enough to dispute Miss
Hepburn's dominance of the picture.
Joan Bennett, as Amy, was good
enough to be called more than ade-
quate, but as her role is typed and
none too attractive, it did not offer
any wide opportunities for acting.
The hardest part, that of Beth, was
done by Jean Parker in a cloying man-
ner, yet that again is as Louisa May
Alcott would have wished it. The
only line we objected to was one
chirped by Miss Parker when Jo and
Amy were springing at each other's
throat�"Birds in their little nests
agree." That might conceivably have
been changed.
Mrs. March, Marmee, was the
least satisfactory person of the cast.
It seemed almost impossible that she
could have produced the four
Marches, especially Amy and Jo. Her
personality made the role no more
iContinued on Pare Two) .
Mrs. Dean Gives
Interview on F. P. A.
Publications of Association Give
sj
Non-Partisan Views on
Major Issues
BASIS OF FACT NEEDED
In an interview with the News last
Thursday, Mrs. Vera Micheles Dean
gave an illuminating outline of requi-
sites for work in the Foreign Policy
Association, with especial reference
to her own career.
"My" preparation for college was
most unorthodox," said Mrs. Dean.
"A business course in Boston was the
only regular schooling I had had. You
will think me very ignorant not to
have gone to school; but I was taught
by tutors in Russia, acquiring a thor-
ough knowledge of the modern lan-
guages. My family left Russia for
Finland in*1917, before the Bolshevik
party got control. There I lived for
two years, when my father, who was
optimistic enough to look forward to
a restoration in Russia, sent me to
America to learn business fhethods
and equip myself to enter his firm.
"After taking the business course
in Boston and holding several secre-
tarial positions, I decided that I must
have a college education. I was ad-
mitted to Radcliffe as a 'special case'
and majored in government and poli-
tics." At the end of her four years
at Radcliffe, Mrs. Dean was award-
ed the Carnegie Endowment Fellow-
ship, which took her to Yale to study
International Relations for a year.
Radcliffe then invited her back to
take a Ph.D.; but her actual work
on the thesis, Gorcrnments <le Facto,
with Special [Reference to the Sovie'
Government, had to be done devious-
ly. The material needed for the sub-
ject was in the Harvard Law Li-
brary, where women are not allowed
to study, however nicely they behave.
Mrs. Dean, after pulling a few
strings, got inside this male sanctu-
ary and found a quiet and presum-
ably safe place in the stacks. Thei
she worked for a year until the mat-
ter was reported to Dean Pound. He
soon put a stop to this breach of law
and order, and she was firmly eject-
ed. However"; although Mrs. Dean
had worked only a year on her the-
sis, she had gathered'all the mate-
rial she needed and could accept th
expulsion with reasonable equanim-
ity.
After getting a Ph.D. in 192s, Mis
Dean entered the Foreign Policy A
sociation, where a former professor
of hers, Dr. Buell, edited the publi-
cations and headed the rrsvaieh staff.
Her qualifications for the pusitiun
were a knowledge of the social sci-
ences, facility in dealing with a vari-
ety of literature developed while
working for a Ph.D., and familiarity
with four languages�French, Ger-
man, Russian, and Italian. When
asked if such an extensive equipment
were necessary for all applicant-,
Mrs. Dean said that at least a year
(Continued on I'at;e Three)
Cast of Varsity Play:
The Knight of the Hurtling
Pestle
By Beaumont and Fletcher
Prologue: Sara Tillinghast.
Citizen: Margaret Kidder.
His Wife: Anita Fouilhoux.
Ralph, his apprentice: Mar-
garet Righter.
Boys: Agnes Halsey, Mar-
garet Halstead.
Venturewell: Doreen Cana-
day.
Humphrey: Helen Kellogg.
Jasper: Honora Bruere.
Merrythought: Anne Reese.
Michael: Margaret Veeder.
Tim: Elizabeth Meirs.
George: Nancy Stevenson.
Host: Katherine Gribbel.
Tapster: Elizabeth Hannan.
Barber: D. Haviland Nel-
son.
Luce: Joan Hopkinson.
Mistress Merrythought: Ger-
trude Franchot.
�C